“It’s not clear at all. I think I said it wasn’t clear. I was giving you my best guess, but I hope we could argue on the basis of as much evidence as we can marshal.”

The transcript provided by Summers’ office yesterday did not name Denton as the questioner, but Catherine J. Didion, director of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists and a conference attendee, said it was Denton.

Posing an ironically prescient query to Summers, Donna J. Nelson, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, asked if a transcript of the president’s remarks would be released.

“I noticed it’s being recorded, so I hope that we’ll be able to have a copy of it,” Nelson said. “That would be nice.”

“We’ll see,” Summers said to laughter from the audience.

—Daniel J. Hemel, William C. Marra, and Sara E. Polsky contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.